REEVE, Charles Frederick (1895-1917)Charles Frederick Reeve was born on 3 November 1895, the only son of Charles Frederick and Annie nee Pirani, of Mitchell Street, St Kilda. Annie Pirani married Charles Frederick Reeve who was a Christian missionary in India. Although the family spent time in India they came home in 1895 (before Charles Reeve’s birth) as all the girls suffered from small pox and were near death. One girl died in India. Reeve’s uncle, Frederick Joy Pirani, was a brilliant mathematician who was killed tragically in 1881, aged 31, after a fall from his horse outside the St Kilda railway station, dying eight or nine days after his fall and cutting short a promising future as a mathematician. He had been acting Professor of Mathematics and Professor elect in Natural Philosophy (Physics).
 (War Service 1914-1918).JPG)
C F Reeve (War Service).
Frederick Reeve was educated at Geelong College, entering in 1904, however he left at Midwinter 1906 for Scotch College, Melbourne. From the age of 12 he had an ambition to fly, he was keenly interested in model aeroplanes, and attempted the construction of a full sized Bleriot monoplane. It was with a view to aircraft construction that he entered Newport Railway Workshops after leaving College, and he spent twelve months there learning practical engineering, training as a fitter and turner. When the Great War broke out, the exploits of the airmen in Europe filled the boy with the keenest desire to fly usefully. A sergeant in the Citizen Forces, he enlisted in the AIF in January 1915, at the age of 18 years becoming a sergeant in 22 Battalion, he embarked on HMAT A38 Ulysses on 8 May 1915 for Egypt. On the way to Gallipoli his ship, the Southland, was torpedoed, but he was rescued by a French destroyer after three hours in the water.
He wrote to his mother from Lemnos:
‘No doubt you will have heard of what happened to us yesterday. But anyway I shall tell you what happened, there were 1700 of us on the Southland steaming in company with five other boats, for the Dardanelles via Lemnos. We were within two and a half hours sail of Lemnos, about ten miles from any land, and fifteen miles from any other ship; when up comes a submarine and sends a torpedo right through us, just forward of the bridge - near the luggage hold. The torpedo exploded in the starboard coal bunker, it entered in the port (left) side, and blew up the deck. It made a terrible noise, and then the whistle blew and the boat stopped. We all ran to our stations and fell into line, and waited till our boats were ready. Some boats got down all right, and some upset; ours upset and I was struggling in the Mediterranean, with all my clothes, boots, and puttees on. I managed after a time to get into one of the life boats. We then attempted to row towards the distant land. This paper I am writing on was in my pocket, and is still damp. I took off my boots and puttees because I had no life belt, and as there was a heavy sea running, I was scared I might drown if we upset. Our chief aim was to get away from the Southland, as she was settling down, and in doing this we passed our Brigadier Colonel Linton who was floating quite still, with his life belt on. Four of us managed to pull him on board, and we just let him lie in the boat. We were so done and sick, and suffering so from shock, that we didn’t care what happened to who. After four and a half hours in the boat, we were picked up by a French destroyer, called the Mussue - I forgot to say that our wireless had called up several war boats and troopships - and this took us, about eighty of us, to Lemnos. The Brigadier died almost as soon as we got on the destroyer, so we covered him with a flag. When we got to Lemnos we were put on the boat on which I am now, the Transylvania, a huge boat, and gradually, all through the late afternoon and night boats kept on arriving with injured men on board. I suppose that there are about fifty men lost; but we don’t know yet. We had a marvellous escape, as the submarine fired two torpedoes, one missed us though. The gun on our stern fired at it, but I don’t think it was a hit. Our men behaved splendidly; but the ship’s crew were a disgrace. The ship’s captain shot two of his men dead, who left their posts. The Southland did not sink; but has been towed to Lemnos. I have only the clothes I stand in; but have lost my boots and puttees. The Southland had the 21st Battalion, and all the Headquarters and officers, including General Legge. If I feel better later on I shall write more.’ Sergeant Reeve was taken on to Lemnos Island and then to Gallipoli, where he served in the trenches until an injury to his spine necessitated him being taken to hospital at Malta. On 13 November, 1915, he was sent to Southern General Hospital, Oxford, England, where he was discharged on 14 April, 1916 from the AIF. On recovery from his injury, he applied to enter the Royal Flying Corps. After some weeks of practical flying, he received a commission as flight-lieutenant. When he was injured in a flying accident in Scotland, he was granted leave, and returned to Australia via America. An article about ‘Lt C F Reeve, Flier’ was published in the San Francisco Examiner on 29 August 1916, on his way home:
‘Before an aviator is attached to the RFC he goes to a school of theoretical aviation, where the instruction includes wireless telegraphy, map reading and meteorology. Then he goes to a school of actual flying. After that he is attached to the reserve squadron. Then he goes to an advanced school where he is taught to fly every machine used at the front. Upon being sent to the front and attached to the squadron his first test is to cross the English Channel. Since Latham made his famous flight 20,000 aviators have flown across the English Channel. At first the Germans had the best of it in the air. The famous Fokker machine was faster than those of the English. Now we have machines that are better than the Fokker. I was returning recently from an excursion over the German defenses when I discovered a Fokker waiting above me and between my position and the English line. Realising that he had every advantage I tried looping the loop to throw him off his aim; but as I came back to position again he got several shots into me. The plane still held, and I managed to slide down just within the lines. The Royal Flying Corps does not give any of its members a chance to become timid or nervous. If a man is brought down, or smashes his machine, or has any sort of an accident, they ask him to take another machine and go back up before he has time to think it over. Lt Reeve is but twenty years old. At the age of sixteen he built an aeroplane in Australia and flew it. He went to Gallipoli early in the war, where he was injured. He was sent to England to recover and while there took his course of instruction. He now wears the highest badge of honor awarded in the RFC.’ Another article about Reeve was published in the Melbourne newspaper,
The Sun on Sunday 29 October 1916 while he was in Melbourne on leave.
‘Few of the Victorians who left Australia with the old 22 Battalion of the AIF have had the adventures of Lt CF Reeve, an old Scotch College boy, who is now in the RFC. His progress has been marked with all the thrills that an ordinary person would care to experience, but he is quite as happy as the day he first entered upon a soldier’s life. Lt Reeve is now at home with his mother at St. Kilda, enjoying a well-earned rest. As soon as his six months’ furlough is up he will be back at his post, wherever that may be. For two months this young officer saw duty on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where he was wounded in the left leg. He was aboard the Southland when that vessel was torpedoed, and spent three hours floating about in the water awaiting assistance.
While he was in hospital in England he applied for a commission in the RFC and obtained it. In the course of his duty at one of the many Zeppelin fighting stations that link up the coast of England he has had four smashes in aeroplanes. None of them have been very serious as far as personal injuries are concerned, but they have been exciting and exceedingly disastrous to the machines. After leaving the hospital in England with his Gallipoli wounds all healed Lt Reeve went to Oxford, where he attended a school of theoretical training in aviation. He was even then well out of the novice class because, before leaving Australia, he had built a machine of his own design at his home. In it, however, he had never flown. After an hour and a half of the practical work he was taken up on his first flight in Yorkshire. Then he went to a superior school, and was subsequently sent to a Zeppelin fighting station in Northumberland. There he was among all the big machines. Lt Reeve states that it is now common knowledge that the latest British aeroplanes are fitted with more than one machine-gun, while they carry their own wireless plant, bombs, steel darts, and searchlights. It is interesting to note that this officer was taught his first lessons in flying by J J Hammond, who will be remembered as one of the pioneers of aviation in Australia. “The speed of the present-day British aeroplane as compared with the Fokker is wonderful.” Lt Reeve said, “Our machines can run rings all round the Fokker, and in construction the Fokker is very much over-rated. It is a rotten stick, which might be likened to a propeller being fixed to a chest of drawers. The machine guns on the Fokker cannot be fired except under certain conditions. They have an attachment to the propeller so that the bullets will pass off the blades, and on some of them there is an interrupter which stops the firing to allow the blade to pass the gun without being struck.
The organization of the British Flying Corps is nothing short of wonderful. It is now the senior service of the British Army, coming between the Navy and the Army in rank. It is wonderful to see the men at drill. Many people think that before long the RFC will be better drilled than the Horse Guards. The work done in the aerodromes is also surprising. Aeroplanes are not turned out singly any longer. They make them there by the dozen, and the men in the shops are workmen of the very highest efficiency. It may not be known generally that the British Government does not take up ship room when machines are required at the front. They are all flown over the Channel now, either singly or in squadron. There is great feeling between the RFC and the Naval Wing, and the rivalry tends to excellent results in the air and in the factory.’ When the first Australian Flying Squadron arrived in England, Lt Reeve saw the officer in charge, Captain Routledge, whom he described as a dare-devil and a wonderful flyer. “It is nothing to see men like him flying under telegraph wires and that sort of thing. Only a little while ago one of the dare-devils of the corps was coming down near two balloon sheds standing side by side. He surprised everyone about by flying right through one and then making the wheels of his machine run gently over the galvanized iron roof of the other, coming down to earth as gently as possible.’
Questioned as to his own accidents, Lt Reeve said that he had been one of the lucky ones. He had had four close calls but had escaped injury. Once, when he was four miles out over the sea and 6000 feet up, his engine stopped, and he had to crawl in over the land in one long glide. He landed in a ploughed paddock and the machine somersaulted. Reeve had to cut his way out of the body of the machine, which was wrecked. He was unharmed. His next accident happened at the end of a spiral descent. He was coming down from 10,000 feet, and was just gliding gracefully into the aerodrome when the engine failed to pick up, and instead of making a nice landing he charged into the hangar. While flying in a fog over the mountains of Scotland he hit the side of a hill, and after two hours of roaming about he came on a farm house. With the farmer he went back to see if the machine could be righted, but the fog was so dense that it was hours before they came on it. On another occasion Lt Reeve ran into a hedge while flying at night. Lt Reeve is convinced that men from the dominions make the best aviators. He says that fully 60 per cent of the members of the RFC are from Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa.
‘The most wonderful sight that I have ever witnessed,’ he said, ‘was the shooting down of the first Zeppelin that was brought down in England. I happened to be on leave, when I heard the whirr of the Zeppelin’s engines, and when the great bag was caught in the beams if the searchlights the crowds of people everywhere burst into cheers. They did not seem to doubt for an instant that the guns would get the airship, and the sight of the bursting shrapnel was worth going miles to witness. Then the Zeppelin seemed to gradually tilt to an angle and come earthwards as gently as though it was being forced down at the will of those aboard her. It was impossible to hear anything but the cheers of a great mass of people as the big airship sagged towards the Thames estuary, and when the crew came ashore they appeared afraid that they would be shot instantly. They were, however, treated with every courtesy, although they kept up a defiant attitude toward the officers addressing them. The Zeppelin commander said that he was not carrying out his own will, but the will of his country.’ Reeve left Melbourne again in November, 1916, and rejoined his corps at Oxford. In 1917 he was with No. 2 Squadron, RFC in France, flying over enemy lines, where he had many exploits, and returned often with the wings of his plane riddled. On 1 May, while on contact patrol, his machine refused to answer its controls, and he crashed, being fatally injured. He died on 13 May, and was buried near the aerodrome at Bethune Town Cemetery, France - Grave III.J.8.
The AWM Collection holds letters written by Sgt C F Reeve describing his service with 22 Battalion and the British Army Flying Corps, experiences in Egypt and Gallipoli, and recreation leave in England. The correspondence also includes letters from a RFC officer to Reeve’s family, informing them of his death in 1917. C F Reeve’s cousin, Carl Simeon Pirani (of Toorak and Kununoppin, WA), who attended Melbourne Grammar School, enlisted in Perth in 10 Battalion on 4 September, 1914, served in Egypt, from where he was invalided home with some mysterious malady, embarking on 10 June, 1915, and subsequently died on 25 April, 1918 on his farm at Kununoppin.
Sources: Based on an edited extract from Geelong Collegians at the Great War compiled by James Affleck. pp92-95 (citing History Committee, The History of Scotch College, Melbourne 1851-1925; Commonwealth War Graves Commission; Reeve Family Papers; Gillian Whitall; The Sun (Melb) 9 October 1916; Photo Gillian Whittall; The History of Scotch College, Melbourne 1851-1925.)